The Application Management Pack plug-in is designed to monitor and
manage all the different technologies that constitute Oracle E-Business
Suite applications, including midtier, configuration, host, and database
management—to name just a few. Customers that have implemented Oracle
Enterprise Manager have experienced dramatic improvements in system
visibility, diagnostic capability, and administrator productivity.

This webcast highlights the key features and benefits of Oracle
Enterprise Manager and the latest version of the Oracle Application
Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite.

Tuesday Nov 06, 2012

The task of managing and monitoring Oracle E-Business Suite environments can be very challenging. The Application Management Pack plug-in is part of Oracle
Enterprise Manager 12c Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business
Suite.

The Application Management Pack plug-in is designed to monitor and manage all the different technologies that constitute Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including midtier, configuration, host, and database management—to name just a few. Customers that have implemented Oracle Enterprise Manager have experienced dramatic improvements in system visibility, diagnostic capability, and administrator productivity.

This webcast will highlight the key features and benefits of Oracle Enterprise Manager, the latest version of the Oracle Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite.

If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't
worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available
from Oracle University. You can monitor this blog for pointers to the
replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here.

If
you have any questions or comments, feel free to email Bill Sawyer
(Senior Manager, Applications Technology Curriculum) at
BilldotSawyer-AT-Oracle-DOT-com.

Monday Apr 02, 2012

The next ATG Live Webcast covers one of the hottest topic areas in E-Business Suite Tools and Technology: Lifecycle Management. Angelo Rosado, Product Manager, ATG Development will lead you through using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and the latest E-Business Suite Plug-in to manage E-Business Suite systems. You can register for the Apr. 5, 2012 event at:

If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available from Oracle University. You can monitor this blog for pointers to the replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email Bill Sawyer (Senior Manager, Applications Technology Curriculum) at BilldotSawyer-AT-Oracle-DOT-com.

This one-hour webcast provides an overview of how EBS sysadmins can
make their lives easier with the Management Packs for Oracle E-Business
Suite Release 12.x. This session will highlight key features in
Applications Management Pack (AMP) and Applications Change Management
Pack (ACMP) that can automate or streamline some of the tasks needed to:

Manage your EBS system configurations

Monitor your EBS environment's performance and uptime

Keep multiple EBS environments in sync with their patches and configurations

Create patches for your EBS customizations and apply them with Oracle's own patching tools

There will also be a special mention of Oracle E-Business Suite Adapter.

This one-hour webcast provides an overview of how EBS sysadmins can make their lives easier with the Management Packs for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.x. This session will highlight key features in Applications Management Pack (AMP) and Applications Change Management Pack (ACMP) that can automate or streamline some of the tasks needed to:

Manage your EBS system configurations

Monitor your EBS environment's performance and uptime

Keep multiple EBS environments in sync with their patches and configurations

Create patches for your EBS customizations and apply them with Oracle's own patching tools

There will also be a special mention of Oracle E-Business Suite Adapter.

The features that were available in the standalone Application Management Pack and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite are now packaged into the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0. The Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0 is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control.

Built-in Diagnostic AbilityRelease 4.0 has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Discovery, Cloning, and User Monitoring that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. This feature improves the setup and configuration process.

Enhanced ACMP Capabilities

Customization Manager

Multi-Node Custom Application Registration:
This feature automates the process of registering and validating custom
products/applications on every node in a multi-node EBS system.

Public/Private File Source Mappings and E-Business Suite Mappings:
File Source Mappings & E-Business Suite Mappings can be created and
marked as public or private. Only the creator/owner can define/edit
his/her own mappings. Users can use public Mappings, but cannot edit or
change settings.

Test Checkout Command for Versions: This feature allows you to test/verify checkout commands at the version level within the File Source Mapping page.

Enhanced Package Build Notifications:
More detailed information on the results of a package build process.
Better, more detailed troubleshooting guidance in the event of build
failures.

Patch Manager

Staged Patches:
Ability to run Patch Manager with no external internet access. Customer
can download Oracle E-Business Suite patches into a shared location for
Patch Manager to access and apply. Supports highly secured production
environments that prohibit external internet connections.

Support for Superseded Patches:
Automatic check for superseded patches. Allows users to easily add
superseded patches into the Patch Run. More comprehensive and correct
Patch Runs. Removes many manual and laborious tasks, frees up Apps DBAs
for higher value-added tasks.

Automatic Primary Node Identification:
Users can now specify which is the "primary node" (that is, which node
hosts the Shared APPL_TOP) during the Patch Run interview process,
available for Release 12 only.

Setup Manager

Preview Extract Results:
Ability to execute an extract in "proof mode", and examine the query
results, to determine accuracy. Used in conjunction with the "where"
clause in Advanced Filtering. This feature can provide better and more
accurate fine tuning of extracts.

Use Uploaded Extracts in New Projects:
Ability to incorporate uploaded extracts in new projects via new LOV
fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository
to access extracts that have been uploaded. Allows customer to reuse
uploaded extracts to provision new instances.

Support for BR100 formats: Setup Manager can now automatically produce reports in the BR100 format. Native support for industry standard formats.

Concurrent Manager API Support:
General Foundation now provides an API for management of "Concurrent
Manager" configuration data. Ability to migrate Concurrent Managers from
one instance to another. Complete the setup once and never again; no
need to redefine the Concurrent Managers.

Certified configurations

The following Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control releases, Oracle E-Business Suite releases, and platforms are supported:

Oracle's
Revenue Recognition rules prohibit us from discussing certification and
release dates, but you're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog
for updates, which I'll post as soon as soon as they're available. Upgrades from AMP & ACMP 3

This
plug-in supersedes the Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle
E-Business Suite 3.1. An upgrade path to 4.0 is provided from 3.1 only.
Therefore it is mandatory for the existing installations to be at the
Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite 3.1 level before
upgrading to 4.0.

AMP & ACMP 4.0 run only with EM 11g, and vice versa

If you're running AMP or ACMP 3.1 on EM 10gR5 and upgrade to AMP/ACMP 4.0, you must upgrade to EM 11g.

If you're running AMP or ACMP 3.1 on EM 10gR5 and upgrade to EM 11g, you must upgrade to AMP or ACMP 4.0.

Wednesday Jun 23, 2010

Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g (OEM 11g) was announced in April 2010. The new systems management features in this latest release have generated a great deal of interest from existing and prospective users of our Applications Management Pack (AMP) and Applications Change Management Pack (ACMP) for Oracle E-Business Suite. We covered our roadmap for AMP and ACMP at OAUG/Collaborate earlier this year, which triggered some lively discussions about our priorities.

This is a compelling example of how you can affect the course of a product. In response to your (sometimes very vocal) feedback, we have begun projects to certify upcoming releases of AMP and ACMP with the latest Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g platform.

We appreciate your sharing your AMP/ACMP priorities with us, and we're excited about the prospect of running our EBS plug-ins with the latest Grid Control 11g release. We look forward to sharing more details with you as soon as they're available.

When will this be released?

Oracle's Revenue Recognition
rules prohibit us from discussing certification and release dates, but
you're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates.

Application Change Management
Pack 3.1 has been enhanced to provide more control and flexibility in
managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes:

Change Approval Framework: Changes
orchestrated through Application Change Management Pack can now be
controlled through the new change approval framework in Release 3.1.
Users can now be segregated as approvers across Oracle E-Business Suite
systems and modules using Customization Manager, Patch Manager or Setup
Manager. Built-in notification capabilities enable approvers and
requestors to be informed about the status of relevant change requests.
It also provides an implicit audit trail mechanism.

Prerequisite Patch Analysis: Oracle
E-Business Suite patches can now be analyzed for prerequisites prior to
target system deployment. The analysis verifies whether the
prerequisites are already available. If not, they can be added to the
automated patch job.

Offline Transformation: Users have
the new ability to download Oracle E-Business Suite setup data to
Microsoft Excel. Setup Data can be edited and new data can be entered
via Excel worksheets. Data is validated within Microsoft Excel and in
Setup Manager.

This new release of Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite Version 3.1 offers the following new capabilities:

Smart Clone:
Next Generation hot-cloning technology built on Enterprise Manager Grid
Control. Smart Clone provides flexibility for administrators to
incorporate their own custom database cloning techniques into AMP's
cloning routines. Smart Clone supports cloning of single or multi-node
Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 CU2 systems deployed on Real
Application Clusters (RAC) and Shared APPL_TOP. Some of the key cloning
scenarios supported include RAC to RAC, RAC to Non-RAC, and Scale Down
(Multi-Node to Single Node).

Concurrent Processing Dashboard:
Administrators now have the ability to monitor and manage Concurrent
Managers and concurrent programs through Application Management Pack
Release 3.1. The new dashboard displays the efficiency of Concurrent
Managers in processing concurrent requests. Administrators can create a
watch list of specific concurrent managers and specific concurrent
programs.

Wednesday Nov 18, 2009

I recently wrote about the eternal dilemma of the Apps system implementer: whether it's worth customizing the E-Business Suite or not. Customizations and extensions introduce the challenge of deploying your customizations between multiple development, QA, and production environments. Our new Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite has the potential to help to with that, and a few other notable systems management tasks, too.

The Application Change Management Pack is one of the most-interesting new lifecycle management products released recently from our Applications Technology Group. The Application Change Management Pack is an optional add-on to the Application Management Pack. The Application Management Pack is an Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control plug-in for the E-Business Suite.

The Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite (sometimes oddly referenced as "ACP" instead of "ACMP") has three noteworthy new capabilities:

Customization Manager: Takes all files associated with a custom application, report or extension and bundles them into an Oracle patch. Standard AD utilities can then be used to apply the patch to different Apps instances.

Patch Manager: Auomates many of the manual tasks associated with applying EBS patches, as well automates installing patches in multiple EBS instances.

Tuesday Jun 23, 2009

Our E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group released a new product, the Application Change Management Pack (ACMP), and a new version of their Application Management Pack (AMP) for Oracle
Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 4 earlier this month. They've just followed this up with a new certification with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 5.

For more details about the new features, documentation, and patches for the latest Application Management Pack and Application Change Management Pack releases, see:

Sunday Apr 20, 2008

[Editor note: Sep 3 2010: The embedded table (the final figure in the article) lists a line that reads, "Pre-Defined Masking Configuration for EBS." This is an error. It should read, "Pre-Defined Masking Algorithms for EBS."]

The act of anonymizing customer, financial, or company confidential data to create new, legible data, which retains the original data's properties, such as its width, type, and format.

The Oracle Enterprise Manager Data Masking Pack uses an irreversible process to replace sensitive data with realistic looking but scrubbed data based on masking rules. This ensures that original data cannot be retrieved, recovered or restored.

Masking processes are traditionally slow because they perform table updates. The Data Masking Pack takes an advantage of built-in optimizations in the database to disable database logging and runs in parallel to quickly create a masked replacement for the original table.

Distinguishing OEM Data Masking and AMP Data Scrambling

The OEM Data Masking is a part of Database Management Pack. Data Scrambling is a part of the Application Management Pack for E-Business suite, a plug-in for the Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Database Scrambling can only be performed when cloning E-Business Suite environments using the Applications Management Pack.

Thursday Feb 28, 2008

Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control allows you to manage all of your Oracle E-Business Suite systems from a single console. The Application Management Pack (AMP) for Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 extends EM 10g Grid Control to manage Oracle Applications systems.

One of the key features of the Applications Management Pack is the ability to clone an Oracle E-Business Suite system automatically. While cloning environments, administrators can modify the standard cloning process to include some custom actions. One such custom action is data
scrambling.

Data scrambling is the process of obfuscating or removing sensitive data, and can be used by functional administrators and database administrators when cloning an environment that contains sensitive information.

Data Scrambling Characteristics

The key characteristics of Data Scrambling are:

The scrambling process is irreversible, so that the original data cannot be derived from the scrambled data.

The scrambling process is repeatable (with the same parameters) and can be used for multiple cloning processes.

Key Data Scrambling Terms

Attribute: Group of columns in one or more tables representing a single, logical E-Business Suite-wide value such as customer name

Tables to Purge: Tables selected to be purged for rows matching user-defined criteria. This table selection allows the removal of sensitive data such as transaction histories before allowing applications to access to the system.

Policy: Functional groupings of Attributes and Tables to Purge related to one or more applications in the E-Business Suite. For example: "GL Policy" or "AR Policy".

Thursday Feb 21, 2008

Our hardworking E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group recently released Application Management Pack version 2.0.1 for Oracle E-Business Suite. This upgrade includes some important new features and a large number of bug fixes. This update is available for download via Patch 5969524 from Oracle Metalink.

Supported E-Business Suite Releases

Application Management Pack (AMP) 2.0.1 is available for Grid Control 10gR3 on Linux (x86) and can be used to manage the following E-Business Suite releases:

Release 11.5.10 CU2 + ATG FP RUP4.H

Release 12.0

What Else Is New?

AMP 2.0.1 is an OPatch rollup update on top of the Pack's earlier release V2.0. Some of the key benefits of this upgrade are:

Improved discovery and cloning capabilities

Management of E-Business Suite advanced topologies

Option to discover and register E-Business Suite instances either through the Command line or EM Grid Control User Interface

This pack also contains major bug fixes in the following areas:

Cloning

6141071: Ability for user to choose custom directories for installing APPL_TOP and DB TOP while cloning EBS R12.

5976900: Ability for users to perform scale up or scale down clone of DB TOP.

6155177: Ability for clone to support the capability to skip optional steps specified in the Clone Procedure.

5892625: Ability to apply an EBS image on an existing E-Business Suite Target.

Discovery

Command Line Interface (CLI) for discovering and registering E-Business Suite system. In addition to the EM Grid Control User Interface based EBS discovery process, customers can now choose to discover using CLI. However the discovery mechanism still remains the same in both the steps.

Certified Oracle E-Business Suite Topology

EBS deployed on shared file system (NFS): Customers can now use AMP 2.0.1 to monitor and manage Oracle E-Business Suite systems deployed on a shared file system. However the cloning capability is still pending certification.

[Completely unrelated aside: This is likely going to be the last major piece of news on this blog for a while. I'm off to visit my teams in India and the UK for an extended trip. It's unlikely that I'll have a lot of free time to post techstack news during my travels, but we'll see how things go.]

Friday Jun 29, 2007

The Applications Management Pack for the E-Business Suite was originally available only for Linux platforms. For those of you waiting for the latest generation of our systems management tool to be ported to your operating system, some good news: it's now available for Sun Solaris.

The Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite extends Oracle Enterprise Manager 10gR3 Grid Control to help monitor and manage Applications environments. This latest version can be used to manage the following environments:

E-Business Suite Release 12.0 and higher

E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10 with ATG RUP 4 or higher

Free downloads for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control are available, but it's important to note that the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite is a separately licensed product. If you'd like to do a hands-on evaluation of this latest release, you should give your Oracle account team a call.

Wednesday Apr 04, 2007

Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an already existing Oracle Applications system. Cloning is a regular part of an Apps DBA's responsibilities, so you're probably already familiar with the latest Rapid Clone utility and its predecessor, adclone.pl, the original AD Clone Utility. If you've used those tools in the past, you likely also know that overall cloning process requires some user intervention for things like the APPS password and so on.

A customer recently asked whether the following cloning process can be fully automated, so that no user intervention is required at all:

Shut down the PROD environment for both the application server and database tier

Do an offline preclone of both tiers

Copy both tiers to another server (the sandbox environment)

Restart the PROD environment

Do an offline postclone of both tiers for the sandbox environment

Start the sandbox environment

In researching that, I was pleased to learn that this kind of automation is a new feature in the latest Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite for Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10gR3.

The management pack automates the cloning of both Release 11i (11.5.10 with ATG RUP4) as well as Release 12 environments. You go through a step-by-step interview process to configure the clone routine once, and then you can reuse the cloning routine as many times as you wish. In addition, the cloning routing can send out a notification if it failed.

Very slick. If you've had a chance to try this, I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences with this new feature.

Friday Feb 23, 2007

Editor May 7, 2006 Update: It's been pointed out that the relative positioning between Oracle Application Manager and the Oracle Application Management Pack could stand to use some elaboration. Oracle Application Manager is still present and bundled with both Apps 11i and 12. The Oracle Application Management Pack is a purchased add-on for Oracle Enterprise Manager. They're related but distinct products.

If you've used previous versions of Oracle Applications Manager (OAM), you'll be pleased to hear that the latest generation of systems management tools has just been released: the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available. This new product plugs into Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10gR3, and is available for Linux platforms in its initial release.

Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite extends Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control to help you monitor and manage Oracle E-Business Suite system environments. The Pack can be used to manage the following Apps releases:

Configuration Reports: Over a hundred reports on E-Business suite configuration details. Reports can be viewed, searched, and compared from within Enterprise Manager Grid control.

Free downloads for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control are available, but it's important to note that the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite is a separately licensed product. If you'd like to do a hands-on evaluation of this latest release, you should give your Oracle account team a call.

Monday Nov 13, 2006

The latest details about the upcoming Release 12 Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g were unveiled at OpenWorld. This new product replaces the older "Grid Control Plug-in for E-Business Suite," and many of the new features are backwards-compatible with Release 11i, too.

This latest plug-in will extend the Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control capabilities for monitoring and managing E-Business Suite environments. It will include a number of cool new features, including:

User interface enhancements, including an enhanced Home and Topology views

Automatic discovery of E-Business Suite environments

New configuration management capabilities, including views, comparisons, and searchs of configuration information across multiple Apps systems

Application Service Level management for Concurrent Porcessing, Forms, Workflow, and Self-Service, with configurable service level alerts

The above is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decision. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Tuesday Oct 17, 2006

[Editor Oct 18, 2007 Update: Changed link to detailed information; there's more coming, including the presentation with detailed features and screenshots, during OpenWorld.]

Our hard-working Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g team has just announced that a new set of Application Management Packs will soon be released for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Siebel.

For the E-Business Suite, this new Application Management Pack will support both Release 11i and 12. Some interesting new features:

Automated discovery

Service Level Management

Out of box service models & beacon transactions

Configuration Management

Topology views

Integration with Application Server & Database diagnostics

Cloning automation for production to test environments

Customized beacon for Forms components

A bit more information about the new application management, monitoring, and service level capabilities can be found here:

Monday Jun 26, 2006

Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) has matured into a very slick and powerful toolbox for Apps sysadmins. Oracle Applications Manager is a standalone tool, but if you're so-inclined, you can optionally use a plug-in to integrate it with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control (OEM). Grid Control allows you to monitor multiple e-Business systems and drill down into Oracle Applications Manager.

The Oracle Grid Control Plug-in for Oracle Applications provides extensions for the Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control management service, repository, and agent.

These extensions introduce new target types that can be monitored within Grid Control, including:

Oracle Applications System

HTTP Server for Oracle Applications 11i

JServ for Oracle Applications 11i

Forms Listener for Oracle Applications 11i

Reports Server for Oracle Applications 11i

Discoverer for Oracle Applications 11i

You can get a top-level view of your Apps environment in Oracle Enterprise Manager:

You can drill down into operational reports for your application server-tier:

As well as getting the same details for your database tier:

The patch numbers for the Grid Control Plug-in for Oracle Applications are: